ID thefts often start at victim's home

Alarmed by the rising crime of identity theft, Americans are snapping up home shredders and scissoring old credit cards to guard against drug addicts pawing through the trash to steal Social Security numbers, bank statements and other precious data.

Law enforcement officials say drug users and people who manufacture fake green cards for illegal immigrants account for a substantial share of identity theft.

But a survey by the Federal Trade Commission says that as many as one-quarter of identity theft victims knew who stole their financial lives — and often it was someone sitting across the dinner table.

"It's pretty common," Kirk Torgensen, chief deputy Utah attorney general, said of family identity theft. "We see it fairly frequently in the cases that law enforcement investigates."

The perception is that drug addicts, especially those craving meth, are mostly responsible for stealing mail, wallets, credit cards and other identifying information to get cash for their habits.

"Some of that is true," Torgensen said. "There are a fair number of people addicted to drugs who go out and look for opportunities, but it's also true that a large number of cases come from family members or close acquaintances. We see as many of those cases, if not more, as we do of the drug addict who's out fishing for information."

The 2003 "Identity Theft Survey Report" was commissioned by the FTC and conducted by Synovate, a private Virginia-based market research company. The survey showed that in 26 percent of identity theft cases that had been identified by individuals surveyed, the victims knew who had stolen their information.

Often, it was a relative, neighbor, friend or someone who worked inside the victim's home.

Under-reported crime

The survey shows this type of crime affected a small proportion of identity theft victims overall. But the report also said survey respondents indicated that as many as 43 percent of them — whether they knew the thief or not — did not file a report with police.

That does not surprise Torgensen, especially when it comes to turning in a loved one.

"It goes under-reported. This is family," he said. "There is a hesitancy to get someone in your family in trouble with the law, of having the stain of letting the whole community know there's something wrong within your family."